That silence had been as distinct as the sharp, the inevitable sound, and something now, in him, followed it up, a sudden air as of confessing at last fully to where she was and of begging the particular question.

"Don't you think then I can take care of myself ?" "Ah, it's exactly what I've gone upon.

If it wasn't for that--!" But she broke off, and they remained only another moment face to face.
"I'll let you know, my dear, the day _I_ feel you've begun to sacrifice me." "'Begun' ?" she extravagantly echoed.
"Well, it will be, for me, the day you've ceased to believe in me." With which, his glasses still fixed on her, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, his legs a little apart, he seemed to plant or to square himself for a kind of assurance it had occurred to him he might as well treat her to, in default of other things, before they changed their subject.

It had the effect, for her, of a reminder--a reminder of all he was, of all he had done, of all, above and beyond his being her perfect little father, she might take him as representing, take him as having, quite eminently, in the eyes of two hemispheres, been capable of, and as therefore wishing, not--was it ?--illegitimately, to call her attention to.

The "successful," beneficent person, the beautiful, bountiful, original, dauntlessly wilful great citizen, the consummate collector and infallible high authority he had been and still was--these things struck her, on the spot, as making up for him, in a wonderful way, a character she must take into account in dealing with him either for pity or for envy.